


Per Te, Una Canzone

by Srin



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Karaoke, M/M, Post-Canon, Team Bonding, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-21
Updated: 2020-12-21
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:34:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,841
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28208391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Srin/pseuds/Srin
Summary: Among the many things Nile would never have guessed about Andy, Nicky, and Joe when she first met them is that they’re all into karaoke. Like,reallyinto it. Andy is currently displaying a level of unholy glee that has up until now, in Nile’s experience, been reserved only for high quality pastries and bladed weapons.-This is Joe/Nicky in the sense that they're present and interacting so obviously their love is undeniable, but the focus is more on the whole team loving and looking after each other. And, of course, the karaoke.
Relationships: Andy | Andromache of Scythia & Nile Freeman & Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani & Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, hints of Andy/Nile
Comments: 12
Kudos: 88





	Per Te, Una Canzone

**Author's Note:**

> This bit of silliness is inspired by [Luca Marinelli's performance of Un'emozione da poco in the film Lo Chiamavano Jeeg Robot](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6myJ3gRf0WA). That character has basically nothing in common with Nicky other than Luca's face and a capacity for violence, but this clip is nonetheless 100% the energy I'm imagining for Karaoke Nicky. The title means 'For you, a song' and is also a line from Un'emozione da poco. 
> 
> Youtube links for the songs the team actually sings in the fic are embedded as they come up, but I've also included a list in the end notes.
> 
> Finally, just FYI since I know some people feel strongly about this sort of thing: there's a brief discussion of Joe's and Nicky's lack of adherence, in the present, to their respective original faiths, and some references to a character telling not exactly respectful but very obviously fake stories about Jesus and Muhammad.

Among the many things Nile would never have guessed about Andy, Nicky, and Joe when she first met them is that they’re all into karaoke. Like, _really_ into it. Andy is currently displaying a level of unholy glee that has up until now, in Nile’s experience, been reserved only for high quality pastries and bladed weapons. Nile would honestly be half-convinced that ‘karaoke’ was Andy’s nickname for, like, a really sexy katana or something, if not for the fact that Joe’s grin is definitely what she has come to think of as his innocent-enthusiasm-for-something-weird grin, and not his this-prank-is-going-to-be-hilarious grin.

Nile was never big on karaoke back home, but she has to admit the set-up in this place in Kyoto – a private room, with surprisingly comfortable couches and an extensive and delicious selection of food and drink – is considerably more appealing than the very public arrangement in a corner of a bar that she’s used to. Andy’s the only one of them who really speaks Japanese, so Nile has no idea what she said to the woman at the desk, but from the way she reacted, Nile’s pretty sure the team has been here before.

That suspicion is further confirmed when Andy puts a code into the machine in their room, and the standard selection of mostly Japanese songs is replaced by one consisting mainly of English, French, Italian, and Arabic music, as well as an eclectic assortment of other languages.

“If there’s anything you like that they don’t have, give Hiroko a list and they’ll get it for next time,” Joe tells her, doling out their drinks while Nicky goes straight for the little platform with the mic.

The music starts and it sounds familiar but Nile can’t place it right away. Joe obviously does, though, because he immediately starts doing what can only be described as giggling uncontrollably into his fruity cocktail. Andy pegs it a beat later and cackles. It takes Nile until Nicky belts out the first lines to realise, and then she starts snickering too. [Pat Benatar. Love is a Battlefield](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGVZOLV9SPo).

Nile knew already that Nicky could sing. She’s heard him a few times in the shower, and when he’s by himself cooking or doing something else with his hands. And there was the time in the safe house in Ukraine that wasn’t so much a house as an abandoned factory. They’d all passed out together on a pile of mattresses in what used to be the foreman’s office, but when Nile and Joe were woken sometime in the night by what turned out to be a couple of stray dogs having a very vocal meeting outside, they quickly realised that both Andy and Nicky were missing. The job hadn’t been especially bad, all things considered, but Joe had been killed taking a barrage of gunfire meant for Andy, and that was in a way worse than if she had been wounded herself; she was pretty blasé about any injury she could walk away from, but took it hard when any of the others were seriously hurt protecting her.

So Joe and Nile didn’t panic; it was unsurprising that Andy would be restless, and equally unsurprising that Nicky would be looking after her. They found them just outside the office, on the big couch against the wall near the door. Nicky was sitting up, Andy curled on her side with her head in his lap. Nicky was stroking her hair and singing a quiet lullaby in some language Nile didn’t recognise, and Andy was asleep. Nicky looked up, and without missing a beat – literally – he and Joe had one of those wordless conversations that Nile alternated between finding adorable and slightly infuriating.

“Wanna join them?” Joe asked her quietly. It didn’t take a lot of consideration.

“I’ll get some blankets,” she whispered.

She came back to find Joe stretched out across the back of the couch, head by Nicky’s shoulder, one arm draped over Nicky’s chest. Nicky had the hand that wasn’t in Andy’s hair curled around Joe’s wrist. This, too, was unsurprising; Nile had already figured out a while ago that there are few non-life-or-death things Joe would prioritise over cuddling Nicky at night, and his spine definitely isn’t one of them. She arranged one blanket over him, another around Nicky and Andy, and then tucked herself into the space by Andy’s feet and dozed off to the sound of Nicky’s voice. Later, Nile woke up with her face mashed against Andy’s boobs, Andy’s arm around her shoulders, still hugging her even though she was definitely already awake. It was, Nile had to admit, a pretty nice way to wake up. No one said anything about it, but it was also probably the least cranky she’d ever seen Andy the morning after a rough job.

So, yeah, Nicky having a nice voice isn’t new information. But what Nile absolutely did not expect is that Nicky – serene, subtle Nicky – would, with a microphone in his hands and a stage under his feet, become a giant ham. It took her a good six months to be able to tell the difference between the tiny mouth-twitch that means he’s upset and the tiny mouth-twitch that means he’s trying not to laugh, and she still has to go by Joe’s reaction to distinguish between the miniscule jaw-clench of actual non-sexy pain and the miniscule jaw-clench of being turned on in an inappropriate setting. And now he’s up there shaking his hips and pulling exaggerated faces like he’s trying to get into Eurovision. 

When he gets to the part that goes ‘You’re begging me to go, then making me stay, why do you hurt me so bad?’ he mimes what must be a re-enactment of his and Joe’s first meeting, and Joe almost chokes on his drink. Nicky stills and turns a little more earnest for the lines ‘And when all this gets old, will it still feel the same? There’s no way this will die,’ grinning sweetly at Joe, but then snaps right back into the over-the-top rockstar routine for the remainder of the song. Andy applauds when he’s done, and it’s not even sarcastic applause. These people are so weird.

When Joe gets up, it takes him about ten seconds to find his song, and Andy groans as soon as it starts.

“Again, Joe, really?” she asks.

“Always, Boss,” he says, winking. It’s another one that Nile doesn’t recognise until the lyrics start.

“‘Oh Nicky you’re so fine, you’re so fine you blow my mind, hey Nicky,’” Joe sings, and Andy rolls her eyes, and Nicky, Nicky looks absolutely delighted, like changing ‘Mickey’ to ‘Nicky’ is the cleverest, most original thing he’s ever heard.

“I take it Joe does [this one](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0aqLwHP4y6Q) a lot?” Nile asks Andy.

“Every damn time he gets half a chance since it came out,” Andy says. “Which was, uh…”

Nile looks it up on her phone. “1981.”

“Really? Feels like it’s been a lot longer than twenty years.”

Nile squints at her, trying to decide if she’s serious.

“1981 was forty years ago, Andy.”

“No it wasn’t. The eighties were twenty years ago,” Andy says firmly, but there’s a hint of doubt in her expression.

“Andy, what year do you think it is now?”

“It’s twenty twenty-” She pauses, obviously doing the math in her head. “Okay, fine, you’re right. So, Joe’s been doing this for forty years. Yeah, that feels more accurate, actually.”

“You could get them to take it off the list,” Nile points out.

Andy shrugs, gesturing vaguely at the way Nicky is beaming, and the way Joe is beaming right back at him.

“Nah, look at their stupid faces,” she says, in the way she has that makes insults feel like endearments. “I’m not gonna try to take that away from them, even if they are ridiculous.” And Nile doesn’t doubt for a second that she means it; for all her snark and hard-assing, it’s obvious she would put up with a lot worse than some cheesy eighties pop renditions if it means giving any of them some uncomplicated happiness.

“Besides, it wouldn’t stop Joe, he’d just do it acapella,” Andy adds. “At least he didn’t bring the outfit this time.”

“Outfit?”

“You ever seen the music video for this song?”

Nile shakes her head, and looks that up too, boggling at the cheerleading uniforms.

“Oh my God.”

“I swear the skirt he got was even shorter than the original.” 

When Andy gets up, she chooses something Nile doesn’t recognise at all, and starts [singing in Italian](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6UEfCKeIFrQ). Joe and Nicky both smile at first but their faces drop after a moment, the way they tend to do when reminded of Andy’s mortality. Nile has picked up some basic Italian by now but she’s not catching anything in the lyrics so far to explain it, so she looks to Nicky for help.

“‘I am not a lady, one with all the stars in her life. I am not a lady, but one for whom the war is never over,’” he translates when Andy reaches the refrain. Oh. Nile gets it now. ‘One for whom the war is never over’ obviously has a bit of a different resonance now than it would have the last time she did this song, pre-mortality. Andy must catch their mood because she rolls her eyes intensely and leans into the upbeat melody, and in a lull between verses, she says in English,

“Lighten up, you saps, that’s an order.” Nile flips her off and Joe and Nicky do some other gesture that Nile doesn’t know but presumably means more or less the same thing, but it leaves them all feeling a little cheerier again, and Andy looks smug, mission accomplished.

“Would you like to go next, Nile?” Nicky asks her when the music starts winding down.

“You go ahead, I’m still picking,” Nile says. She really is going to have to give Hiroko a list for next time; apart from the Japanese music and English top 40 stuff in the selection for the normal customers, she’s pretty sure there’s nothing in here from the last decade and barely anything from the current century, which isn’t bad exactly but is kind of limiting.

“You don’t have to, if you don’t wanna,” Joe adds.

“You do have to sit here and listen to us, though,” Andy says, sitting back down. There’s plenty of room on the couch but she squishes in closer to Nile than she was before, and Nile makes no attempt to budge over. It’s nice, being pressed up against Andy, feeling her warm and near and whole, whether they’re sleeping or not.

“Because Nicky’s the only one who’d be nice enough to take you back to the hotel early,” Andy goes on, “and I’m the only one who will be able to _find_ the hotel.”

“Hey, this is Kyoto, not Tokyo, we can cope with the subway here,” Joe objects.

“Maybe, but what about getting to the hotel from the station?”

“It’s five minutes away!”

“Five minutes for _me_ , who knows where I’m going.”

“You really don’t have to sing, if you’d rather not,” Nicky tells Nile while Joe and Andy continue to bicker over whether Nicky would get lost on the way to the hotel.

“Nah it’s cool, I’m game, just gotta find the right song,” she says.

This is another thing that took some getting used to; for all that they’re unrelenting when it comes to whatever needs to be done to finish the job or protect each other, they’re all – even Andy, in her own weird way – startlingly considerate when it comes to other stuff Nile does or doesn’t want to do. It’s unexpected but also kind of amazing to have terrifyingly competent, experienced warriors who are literally centuries older than she is automatically treating her with more respect than she’s used to getting from a lot of dumbasses her own age. When the three of them were drinking some heinous-smelling concoction in Mongolia, they offered it to her too but didn’t push when she declined. When they went to a sauna in Estonia, they actually asked her if she minded before they started stripping off – she didn’t, at all, any hesitation she might once have had regarding communal nudity didn’t survive basic and who wants to sweat in a towel? - but it was still nice to be asked. And when she got an urge to go to church at one point, Andy kept her comments to herself, and Joe even offered to come with her.

“Not gonna lie, I would’ve thought if anyone would be up for this, it would be Nicky,” Nile said. Joe smiled softly.

“Nah, neither of us has been what you might call a believer for a long time, but let’s just say that I parted ways with the faith I was raised in on much better terms than Nicky did his,” Joe said. “He’s okay with churches in the off-hours, but I can’t remember the last time he voluntarily went to any kind of Christian service.”

“And you?”

“I don’t mind them, Christian or Muslim or whatever else, as long as they’re more about being grateful for the good things in the world than stirring up hatred for the ‘wrong’. I’ll still go to a mosque, every once in a while. I enjoy the pageantry of the ritual, and the sense of community. I don’t have to believe in the words myself to appreciate what coming together to hear them does for people who do, you know? But it’s totally up to you, I’m not gonna be offended at all if you’d rather go on your own.”

“No, I – that sounds nice. I’d like the company.” Going with Joe wasn’t the same as going with her family, of course it wasn’t, but it was its own kind of good, a good she could get used to.

And then there’s Andy. The first time after London that they were prepping for a job that was likely to involve killing people, Andy had been the one to turn to Nile and say,

“Are you okay with this? If you’d rather not be pulling the trigger, we can work it out so you don’t have to-”

“I’m good,” Nile had said, and meant it. She believed in the job they were doing, and letting the rest of them go in short-handed sure as hell wasn’t going to let her sleep any easier. “But – thank you.” And she’d meant that, too.

So it’s also not surprising that they’re not being pushy about the karaoke, but it’s still nice. It’s nice, too, having Andy lean in even closer, trying to sneak a look while she scrolls through the options, and it’s nice feeling her laugh all through her body when Nile swats at her shoulder and angles the tablet out of view, saying,

“Nope, no peeking, not even for you!”

On Nicky’s next turn, it’s [Abba, Waterloo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sj_9CiNkkn4), with no less drama than his previous number. Andy and Joe share a look when the music starts up that Nile can’t interpret.

“Nicky’s always loved this song,” Joe explains. “But Booker was – you’d never know what you’d get, sometimes he’d hop up and join in, all smiles and funny stories about what a shit Napoleon was, and other times he’d go real quiet and just kind of check out for the night, and you could never tell ahead of time what it’d be. So Nicky stopped doing it, didn’t want to take the chance of upsetting him.”

Of course he didn’t. Nile thinks of the time, early on, when she went on a grocery run with Nicky. She was already in a funky, delicate mood for whatever reason, and he gestured to a display of Pringles, asking if she liked them, and she got overwhelmed with the memory of using the empty cans for pretend sword-fights with her brother when they were kids. She absolutely didn’t want to talk about it that day, couldn’t face even the prospect of the gentle sympathetic look he’d almost certainly give her if she explained, so she’d swallowed hard and said she wasn’t in the mood for them. And Nicky had just looked at her carefully for a moment, and nodded and put them back without a word. He didn’t ask then, and he didn’t ask a week later when he found her holed up in her room, eating a can of Pringles and crying. He just asked if she wanted a hug, and held her when she nodded, and she loved him for it.

Joe and Andy join in enthusiastically on the line ‘The history book on the shelf is always repeating itself’, startling Nile out of the memory and back to the now, which is Nicky somehow managing to give the impression of being decked out in satin and go-go boots despite the fact that he’s wearing utterly non-descript jeans and a plain t-shirt. Joe also mouths along with ‘Promise to love you for ever more’, because of course he does.

“Man, I miss the seventies sometimes,” Joe says mournfully, watching Nicky’s hips sway.

“Seriously? The _nineteen_ seventies?” Nile asks, because she can never really be sure with them.

“Nicky in ass-hugging bell-bottoms and skin-tight, half-unbuttoned shirts,” Andy supplies. “Do you remember that moustache he had, though?” she asks Joe.

“Yes, I do,” Joe says, with a look on his face that, Nile has learned, means she shouldn’t ask any more questions unless she wants to hear one of their sex stories. She will sometimes ask anyway, if she’s in the right mood, because some of them are hilarious and even the filthier ones tend to be weirdly sweet, but Nicky’s busy right now and half the fun is in watching them correct each other and make each other blush. (“No, no, love, in Malta we put the villain’s body in the wardrobe so I could fuck you on the bed. You fucked me in the _closet_ with the body on the _bed_ in Sardinia.” “Oh yeah, you’re right. Where were we when we did the thing with the peaches in a pantry?”) Also, Nile’s assuming the moustache was a pornstache and in this case she really does not want to know how that could be a thing Joe misses.

Andy goes next because Joe is apparently still too distracted by the memory of whatever Nicky’s seventies pornstache did for him to pick a song, though not distracted enough not to cheer when Andy starts on [The Rolling Stones’ Sympathy for the Devil](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GgnClrx8N2k).

“Was she actually?” Nile asks Nicky and Joe when she gets to the ‘I was ‘round when Jesus Christ had his moment of doubt and pain’ bit.

“I mean, she was definitely around _somewhere_ ,” Joe says. “We did ask, about Muhammad too, but she’s never given us a straight answer about either one.”

“At first we thought perhaps she knew something that we would not like to hear,” Nicky says.

“But at this point we’re _pretty_ sure she actually doesn’t know anything interesting and just wants to keep the air of mystery going. The world’s a big place and it’s not like first century Judea or seventh century Arabia were in her top ten favourite haunts. And Quynh would just make stuff up. She claimed Jesus was an unsuccessful musician who invented the Son of God thing to get better gigs.”

“Which is not entirely implausible,” Nicky says, “But she _also_ claimed that he owed her five goats, travelled by elephant, and was allergic to – what was it, Joe? Gooseberries?”

“Lingonberries, I think? It was something they almost certainly didn’t have in the area at that time. So we’re fairly confident all of her stories were bullshit.”

“She told us Muhammad owed her three camels, kept a pet zebra, and had a beautiful singing voice but could only sing in languages other than Arabic,” Nicky adds.

“Also that she and Andy had an orgy with several of his wives.”

“Which is also not entirely implausible, but…”

“You could try asking her, though,” Joe adds, looking thoughtful. Nicky nods his agreement.

“Why would she tell me anything she wouldn’t tell you?”

“She likes you,” Nicky says.

“She definitely likes you too,” Nile says, incredulous.

“Of course, but that is different,” Nicky says, and he’s doing the cryptic face that means she’s definitely not going to get a better answer out of him, so Nile gives up and munches on the assorted snacks in front of her. She has no idea what half of them are, but they’re all delicious.

Andy’s nearing the end of the song by this point and she doesn’t put on a show like Nicky, but the way she smirks while crooning ‘Tell me baby, what’s my name?’ does things to Nile’s insides that she’s not entirely prepared to deal with right now.

Joe goes next and Nile thinks she recognises the music as the Clash’s Rock the Casbah, but when Joe starts singing, it’s not the lyrics that she was anticipating. At least, not the English ones.

“Wait, what?” she asks.

“Joe is doing [Rachid Taha’s version](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02Sg9H2T_TQ),” Nicky says.

“The Algerian guy, right?” Andy asks.

“Yes,” Nicky says. “There is something rather poetic about the Algerian who lived in France, creating an Arabic translation of this English song about western music in an Islamic country, no?”

“Nice,” Nile agrees, and then finally spots something in the song listing that feels right for her. She gets up after Joe finishes, gripping the mic and feeling – actually, not feeling nervous at all, she realises, because what’s a little potentially questionable singing between immortal weirdos who regularly watch each other regrow limbs and then sleep piled on top of each other?

“‘What would you think if I sang out of tune? Would you stand up and walk out on me?’” Nile starts, and Nicky obviously doesn’t know [this song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCrlyX6XbTU) because he frowns and looks like he’s about to interrupt with reassurance, because of course he is, until Joe mutters something in his ear that makes him relax. Joe just smiles at her, soft and fond, and Andy looks pleased and, Nile’s pretty sure, actually a little touched. Success.

“‘Oh, I get by with a little help from my friends,’” Nile sings, and then thinks, what the hell, if Joe can change up lyrics, why can’t she? “‘I get up after I die with a little help from my friends…’”

Andy whoops and applauds. Nicky looks startled and throws Joe a questioning glance; Joe shakes his head, grinning even wider, and then Nicky does his little snort-giggle, which Nile considers a major personal victory. When Nile gets to the last ‘I want somebody to love’ she changes that too, to ‘I got somebody to love’, making eye contact with each of them in turn, (maybe lingering juuust a tiny bit longer on Andy, who’s looking suspiciously soft-eyed,) because yeah. She does have somebody – three really old, really weird, really wonderful somebodies – to love.

**Author's Note:**

> [Love Is A Battlefield - Pat Benatar](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGVZOLV9SPo)  
> [Hey Mickey - Toni Basil](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0aqLwHP4y6Q)  
> [Non sono una signora - Loredana Bertè](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6UEfCKeIFrQ)  
> [Waterloo - Abba](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sj_9CiNkkn4)  
> [Sympathy for the Devil - The Rolling Stones](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GgnClrx8N2k)  
> [Rock El Casbah - Rachid Taha](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02Sg9H2T_TQ)  
> With A Little Help From My Friends - [The Beatles'](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0C58ttB2-Qg) version is probably more likely for solo karaoke, but I feel like the energy of [Joe Cocker's](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCrlyX6XbTU) suits Nile better. 
> 
> Also, it didn't make it into the fic, but I imagine Joe and Nicky do a great duet of [Istanbul (Not Constantinople)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0JhC3LO0-8), and Andy does an excellent take on [Shirley Bassey & The Propellerheads' History Repeating](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsSyQlqVHs0).
> 
> Finally, 70's pornstache Nicky is of course inspired by [Luca's look as Primo Nizzuto in Trust.](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/tv/2018/09/26/TELEMMGLPICT000174358484_trans_NvBQzQNjv4Bqe8EOArUxzcOfIfa2qlTi9V6U2SePB5BAfCc4_pXVBIQ.jpeg)


End file.
